Scalia shows an interest in LULAC’s stay request

From the “it could mean something, but it could be nothing” file: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has asked for groups involved in the Texas redistricting mess to file briefs responding to a bid by one minority group for an emergency stay of the interim congressional redistricting map, which would prevent it from being used in the November election.

“Look, I’m a realist and I realize only a miracle is going to save us,” Vera said, adding that he expected Scalia to outright reject LULAC’s request. “I have to believe that the Supreme Court is not going to create two sets of rules — one of the white/anglo majority and the other for [Latinos].”

“Everybody knows in this case agrees that this map is legally flawed,” Vera said.

“It’s fairly typical to ask for a response,” said Rick Hasen, a University of California Irvine election law professor. “I would not read to much into it.”

He said that would expect the Court to decline the request without any dissent.

LULAC and several other minority groups asked the San Antonio panel to hear arguments about changing the interim maps the state is using for the 2012 election after another panel of federal judges in Washington D.C. struck down the redistricting maps passed by the Legislature. In a unanimous decision, that panel of three judges — two appointed by President George W. Bush and one appointed by President Barack Obama — said the state could not prove that the Legislature’s congressional map was not created with discriminatory intent and that they could not prove it would not reduce minority representation (retrogression).

Because the Legislature’s maps could not take affect until they were approved by the D.C. panel (which ultimately decided against them), the San Antonio panel drew a set of interim maps in early 2012 so elections could be held. And under orders from the U.S. Supreme Court, those interim maps were largely based on the maps passed by the Legislature.

So when the D.C. panel struck down the Legislature’s maps for violating the Voting Rights Act, LULAC and a few other minority groups argued that ruling should prevent the interim maps for being used for the 2012 election. Other minority groups, like the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, argued that the interim maps should be used for the 2012 election but only because it would be logistically impossible to draw new maps in time. Meanwhile, a lawyer for the Attorney General argued that the interim maps fixed the problems identified in the D.C. Court’s decision.